The Rhode Island Economic Development Corp. and Bank of New York Mellon Trust have won a court case allowing them to take possession of the assets of bankrupt developer 38 Studios, reports Bloomberg (thanks Examiner.com). Word is this was to stave off the possibility that remnants if the IP the state now owns as a result of its investment in the studio would be lost by the trustee in this case, who apparently did not understand the implications of selling off the company's computers:

The move was necessitated when the trustee assigned to 38 Studios' bankruptcy proceedings wanted to sell the assets individually. The Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation, the state entity that lent funds to 38 Studios, and investment banking firm Bank of New York Mellon Inc. won a judgment against the trustee to prevent the sale of the assets.

Sold individually the computers are not worth much, but each computer contains parts of the intellectual properties formerly owned by 38 Studios and would have negatively impacted the ability for Rhode Island or the bank to recoup any monies to cover their losses in the loans made to the studio. The judgment won by the agency and bank will give them time to transfer the information over to new servers which can take weeks to complete.

LightAssassin wrote on Aug 10, 2012, 13:14:Which can take weeks to complete... What the hell... Who is taking weeks to copy files or image hard drives then wipe them???

Must be a gov. organization

It's not any ordinary government, it's Rhode Island! Actually, I expect nothing to be gained from retrieving the assets. In fact, I don't expect the assets to be retrieved at all. The computers will probably end up in storage somewhere after they hire an intern to sift through the data, file a meaningless and inaccurate report on what is there, and that will be the last we hear about it.